Public transit made easy

[mattbell]

I've known that Google has had a "public transit directions" option on google maps for the iphone for a couple of years now, but I only really started making use of it today to facilitate a day-long adventure around San Francisco.  It is so amazingly useful.  In the past I tended to avoid SF's buses (and instead focus on the muni & bart trains) because the system was so complex that I needed a large map with me at all times to really navigate the bus system properly.  Ironically, the map needed to be large because the system covered the city very well. 

I don't know if the system is fully integrated with NextBus, which provides real-time bus positions via gps, but the times it gave seemed fairly accurate. 

Building up an intuition for the bus system in a new city often takes longer than building up an intuition for major streets.  As a result, having a little voice that (metaphorically) whispers in your ear to stand on a street corner, get on a particular bus, get off at a particular spot, board another bus, and then disembark at your destination, is incredibly useful and is likely to make me use the bus system a lot more in the future.

Comments

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Around here, there's a device I've seen carried by some of the visually impaired riders that tells them in a Speak-'N'-Spell voice how close they are to their destinations (I drive the bus).

If that's enabled by GPS, I see no reason a GPS-equipped iPhone app can't do the very same thing. Sadly, the Seattle area's version of Next Bus seems to be down, probably due to budget cuts, so coordinating the two systems wouldn't work right now.

Still and all, nice.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

I've used Google's transit planner fairly extensively and it's quite good overall but there are gaps - one time it told me to take an express bus that didn't actually stop where I needed to get off and I had to walk a few blocks back. I should have taken the local. Another time it told me I would have to wait 25 min to make a transfer to a light rail I KNOW runs every 15min.

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately Google transit's coverage is decidedly partial. I was going to say that in LA it's been awful, but when I checked just now they seem to have added Metro rail and bus coverage, which actually means that it's pretty amazing! I guess whenever there's something that Google suggests that it should have, it always seems to have it within a couple months.